Sunday, December 1, 2013

Movie review: Lost Continent 1951

Well, it’s time for another movie review, and time for one
of the bad movies. This week is a pretty obscure one, known mostly to only
Mystery Science Theater fans. Just say
the phrase “Rock Climbing” to a MSTie and they’ll know what that means. The film is the 1951 film Lost Continent.It is one of the many 1950s science fiction
films, but with strong influence from the Lost World genre of fiction.It was one of the many collaborations between
brothers Sam and Sigmund Newfeld and executive producer Robert Lippert (who
also produced King Dinosaur).Cesar
Romero, already a star and only a few years after his service in the US Coast
Guard, was chosen for the lead, with Hugh Beaumont (several years before Leave
It To Beaver), John Hoyt(before most of
his film work), Sid Melton (part of a long series of minor comedy parts in
Lippert films), and Whit Bissel (in his most prolific period of movie and TV
work).This was an ambitious film, not
only with a large colorful cast, but also with expensive stop motion animation
effects by Augie Lohman (who would later create Moby Dick for the John
Huston-Gregory Peck adaptation and the effects for Soylent Green).

The film is introduced with Star War style scrolling credits
and begins with military stock footage, of course, but it actually has a lot to
do with the story this time.The footage
is mixed in with a scene in a military control center, setting up the premise.An American rocket, flying over the south
Pacific during a test, loses control and crash lands in unknown coordinates. Dr
Phillips (Hugh Beaumont), Dr. Briggs (Whit Bissel) and Dr. Rostov (John Hoyt) insist on
recovering it. We are then introduced to the other characters as they are
recruited-Major Nolan (Cesar Romero) is on a date and Sergeant Tatlow and Lieutenant
Wilson are the mechanic and pilot for the air force.

A plane ride establishes their characters-the military personnel
are at odds with the scientists. When they approach the rocket coordinates, the
controls die and they crash land. They meet a villager (played by Aquanetta) and
her brother , who explain that the rocket crashed on top of their sacred
mountain. This scene sets up the next plot point: they must climb the mountain
to reach their rocket. Lots of rock climbing.

Ah yes, rock climbing. The motif and the mantra of Joel and company in the Mystery Science Theater episode. The middle of this movie is focused
on their ascent, and it’s excruciatingly boring. I used to save my opinions after
the synopsis, but I think I’m justified in changing the format.Joel and his robot pals went mad during this
sequence. The filmmakers attempt punch up this dull middle with a few scenes:
the group encounters poison gas (“What’s a little poison gas?”), during a night’s
storm Rostov sees a giant lizard, and at one point Briggs’ heart gives out and
he falls to his death. Unfortunately,
the lizard is fake and brief, the poison gas does little to the plot and adds
no excitement, and Briggs has had so little screentime and lines than his
demise is not tragic. The fact that they quickly move on after only a very
brief moment of grief doesn’t help the pathos. Then back to rock climbing; a lot of rock
climbing

About an hour into the movie, they finally reach the top and
find a lush plateau full of tropical vegetation.It’s about at this point that Nolan and Wilson
begin to distrust Rostov (“I don’t think anything”), suspecting him of having
ulterior motives.Their suspicion grows
when Phillips and Rostov find traces of uranium under the soil and show a great
deal of enthusiasm for the find. Fortunately, that’s when the dinosaurs come
in.

First, Phillips identifies a huge fresh print as
prehistoric. “My calendar says 20th century AD not 100 million BC!”
Nolan objects,but the next scene has
Tatlow spot a Brontosaurus.With a roar,
it attacks the party. Phillips is treed, but that’s a really bad idea with a
hungry sauropod! Being a 1951 movie, however, the army guys brought their guns,
and Nolan and Wilson drive off the dinosaur.That night,while Phillips and
Wilson ponder their situation, and Rostov shows a great deal of interest in the
radiation (causing more antagonism from Nolan). The next morning, Phillips and
Rostov are gone, and the rest find them nearby-Phillips is pinned by a rock and
Rostov is menaced by a Triceratops.Nolan vents at Phillips but the Triceratops charges. This time they’re
rescued by another Triceratops. As the ceratopsian duel to the death, the party
manages to free Phillips and escapes.

The next scene is the emotional climax during a smoke break-Nolan
apologizes to Rostov for his suspicions, but Rostov understands and explains
his past “First in one of Hitler’s concentration camps, then my wife and unborn
child died in another with Russian-made barb wire. It doesn’t change that much”.Phillips and Rostov then exposit that volcanic
gas is building up underneath the plateau and that the radiation trail to the
rocket has died off, making their situation hopeless.Wilson despairs, but Nolan takes command and
sternly rallies the rest, reminding them of their mission and their common
situation. “So I’ll spit in their eye”, Wilson snipes.

Wilson, hunting for food, brings down a pterosaur, and the
animal lands next to the rocket. Then two Triceratops and Brontosaurus show
up.Nolan quickly makes up a plan-the
scientists will go get vital information tapes from the rocket while Wilson and
Tatlow will distract the dinosaurs. The
plan works, and the dinosaurs are scared off.But no sooner than the scientists complete their task than the
Triceratops returns, killing Tatlow. A few bullets to the face prevent it from
finishing them off.

The falling action of the movie is the climb down,
interrupted by a remarkably dull earthquake.They manage to escape aboard one of the natives’ catamarans as the island
collapses (?!) behind them.And with
that, the film abruptly ends.

I really do try to sympathize with this movie. It’s
ambitious, it has strong performances,the plot is solid for an adventure hook, and the dinosaurs are quite
well done despite not being nearly as well done as O’Brien or Harryhausen. However, this is solidly a bad movie and a
real dud of one.Sid Melton has decent
comedic timing, but his lines aren’t very funny. Most of his character is
obsessing over planes.Wilson, being the
stock army guy, is just plain annoying. Cesar Romero has a few effective
scenes, but really has little to do and it takes multiple viewings to figure
out that he’s supposed to be the hero.

Of course, the main problem is the middle act. Nobody likes
to see endless walking and climbing in a movie. It’s really boring. Imagine if
Lord of the Rings had even more endless scenes of the Fellowship walking around
Middle Earth, or Frodo and Sam across Mordor. Instead, montages and editing
were used to keep the story moving. No such luck here.Instead, very little dialogue is exchanged
for 20 minutes as the characters just keep climbing. The middle part of any
story must be handled carefully-it’s a problem that’s kept me from finishing
many of my own stories. This film doesn’t even try.

The final third, despite the dinosaurs, has a great deal of
problems. Rostov is suddenly suspected and just as quickly forgiven instead of
a long arc. The tension between the military and the scientists was never
explored before and is never resolved. The dinosaurs, being so expensive,
really are cameos and have very little to do with the plot. By the time the
party reaches the plateau, it’s too late for anything interesting to
happen.The models, while pretty good
compared to other attempts (witness Beast of Hollow Mountain) and certainly
worth the cost (witness King Dinosaur), are still not worthy of Delgado and the
animation lacks the character of Willis O’Brien, despite a few interesting
touches such as the homage to King Kong’s Brontosaur attack.

Of course, after finding the rocket, there’s the problem of
ending the film, and the film botches that, too.The earthquake is given one line of
foreshadowing, and it’s hard to make out what’s to blame.Like the 1960 Lost World, this natural disaster
is given more time than the animals, and destroys the lost world for no good reason.Was there a compulsion to just kill off
anything weird or challenging to the status quo? Is it because natural disasters
are cheaper to film and just as exciting for some people? Either way,the earthquake adds nothing. The ending of the film is incredibly abrupt
as well; there are no character resolutions, there’s no upside or reward to the
whole mission; we never see either female character again, and there’s no
dialogue whatsoever.At least in the
horrid out-of-no-where climax of King Dinosaur, they attempted some sort of bizarre
comment on the destruction.

Lost Continent is a film that can be watched without Joel,
Crow, and Tom, but it certainly helps a great deal to have them along for
levity. While the banter and Sid Melton’s entire character suggest high-spirits, the
slow glum crawl up the mountain and the shocking brutal deaths of two of the
characters (neither of which have much of impact to the story) prevent any real
fun. So I’d say you have two choices; the MST3k episode http://www.amazon.com/Mystery-Science-Theater-XVIII-Continent/dp/B003CNQPNI
or with the channel skip at your fingertips. I give it 42/100 for the dated
charm, some good performances, and the dinosaurs

About Me

Hi everyone! You may know me already, but 99% of you won't. I've decided to make a blog for myself. I'm a anthropology student who has returned to his original passion for palaeontology. Ever since I was little, I've been fascinated with the weird and wonderful animals that have inhabited our planet and I've made this blog to keep this in my mind and hopefully in yours. Most people blog about their interests, and while I've got a range of interests-see history and anthropology above, not to mention zoology, astronomy, art, cooking, science fiction and fantasy films and literature, and a myriad of others, the one I want to do for a living is the study of Earth's ancient past.

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